Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Tom Wilson Edition

(photo from The Daily Beast)

This week we wish a posthumous Happy Birthday to Tom Wilson, a key figure in ‘60s music who made brief but permanent marks as a member of that most precarious of occupations in the record industry, the producer.

From an artistic perspective, most producers at best take care of the business end of things while staying out of the way and letting the musicians work. The best ones, however, have the ability to put the right pieces together at the right time to make magic on tape.

Many “name” producers are known for working with a specific band (George Martin) or cultivating a specific sound (Phil Spector). But few can match Wilson’s eclectic and forward-thinking catalog. Hailing from Texas, he got his start by founding a jazz label that produced the debut albums of Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor. Wilson would go on to contribute to the early work of several landmark artists of the 1960s including Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, The Animals, The Velvet Underground, Nico, and Frank Zappa’s band The Mothers of Invention. Some of the artists were recording their first albums, others were transitioning from folk and roots music into more amped-up electric sounds.

It’s probably the fact that he died young and most of his work was with artists who had yet to become icons that he’s not hailed as one of the “super-producers” of his day. There’s little doubt that many of the Sounds of the ‘60s would be different had he not come along.

In Mr. Wilson’s honor, take your MP3 player, press the "shuffle" button, and share the first 10 songs that play:

1. Coachwhips – Like Food, It Feels (Get Yr Body Next Ta Mine)

2. His Name Is Alive - Baby Fish Mouth (Mouth by Mouth)

3. Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy – Little Joe from Chicago

4. The Big Pink – Give It Up (Future This)

5. They Might Be Giants – Answer (Glean)

7. Zelienople – Dr. Brilliant (Sleeper Coach)

8. Led Zeppelin – When the Levee Breaks (Led Zeppelin IV)

9. Frank Sinatra – Ol’ Man River (The Best of Frank Sinatra)

10. Gordon Ashworth – Norma (S.T.L.A.)

comments powered by Disqus